Just for the record, on-app, top level post on circles with a 1:23 AM time stamp (app is set to edt) on 11/2/23

I know market is resolved, but just for posterity.

From what I understand, the Circles functionality still completely exists in the code (hence the old Circles tweets still showing as private, that Chrome extension working, etc.) but Twitter seems to have done all that it practically could to hide it from the user on the date specified. I maintain that this constitutes disability of the feature for the purpose of this market, and therefore warrants a hard Yes resolution.

I do not believe it would be a reasonable interpretation of the resolution criteria to say that the feature is not disabled as the code still exists—Twitter never pledged to destroy all traces of the feature; it said that the ability to create new Circle posts and to add users to Circles would be lost, while there would be a continuing method of removing users from Circles. This implies that Twitter expected old Circle posts to be retained with their original privacy settings after the deprecation date, which in turn implies that the Circles code was never to be deleted.

Additionally, I do not believe that it should be necessary for Circles to have been disabled for every single Twitter user in order to have a full Yes resolution. This is too high a standard for a platform with millions of users, many of whom are not using up-to-date versions of it. There were bound to be aberrations—there always are. To define 'disabled' so narrowly from the beginning would have rendered this market pointless.

However, I recognise the need to balance the opportunity for participants to give input with the need to resolve the market in a timely fashion. The latter is particularly important as the October season is ending soon. With any luck, I will be going to sleep in a few hours, so in the interest of advancing the debate toward a speedy resolution, I will say now that I would not object to a 95% Yes resolution, as it seems plausible that roughly 1 in 20 active users retained Circles functionality at the time the market closed. As already mentioned, I do not believe this should matter, but it is a concession I am making nonetheless. Considering that I have no power here except that of persuasion, such a concession means nothing except that it may move the argument forward.

I trust that KnowNothing's decision, whatever it is, will be a reasoned one.

@a_l_e_x fr it’s kinda BS that you could go from Diamond to Gold over people unreasonably buying NO at the very end.

@HedShock yeah, it's annoying, but it might not matter if we get a quick and correct resolution. I don't begrudge anyone for jumping on any value they thought was there; if anything it's my fault for risking so much of my balance when I was only just inside the promotion zone.

Most Twitter users use mobile which had Circles functionality disabled long before market close, and at least the majority of desktop users didn’t have Circles functionality near/at market close. So I’m really struggling to understand why anyone expected the market to resolve less than 90%…

Whichever % of resolution you choose, would you be able to resolve it by 11:59pm PST tonight?

@yawnstantine 😂😂

@yawnstantine is the reason you want it resolved by then that you want to invest back the money? because if liquidity is all you want, i can give you a no-interest loan that you could pay me back after the market closes.

reason i'm reluctant to close right now is that I'm aware thaat plenty of people were asleep at market close, so I want to give them a chance to give input and provide evidence before making a final resolution.

I believe there is a strong case for a Yes resolution. It remains the intent of Twitter/X to deprecate the feature, and this is what has happened. That a small proportion of users still has access to Circles by virtue of being left behind by a new update of some kind is, in my view, immaterial. Would we determine that Flappy Bird is still active because it was installed on some devices before its removal from the app store?

If, however, this market is to resolve on probability—and, to be clear, I am proceeding from this premise without endorsing it whatsoever—then I would argue that the probability should correspond as closely as possible to the percentage of users for whom the Circles feature has been disabled.

The trouble with this idea is that there is no perfect way to measure that percentage; any method will be flawed. One method I would cautiously suggest is to search Twitter/X for recent posts containing the word 'circles'. If you do this now, you will see that the number of posts lamenting that "circles are gone" or "I miss circles already" greatly outweighs the number of users expressing that they still have access to it. Again, I realise that there are several flaws to this method, and I welcome more accurate ones. It may be possible to obtain data from more specific searches (e.g. in the last few hours, how many posts have included the phrase "circles are gone" and how many have included "I still have circles"?) but I acknowledge that the more specific the search is, the more likely it is to exclude some relevant posts. From a cursory glance, I think it is clear that the vast majority of active users have lost access to Circles and, pending more information, I do not believe it would be remotely reasonable to resolve this market to a probability any lower than 95%.

EDIT: For the same reasons outlined above, I cannot imagine how a Chrome extension could have any bearing on the resolution of this market.

@a_l_e_x I'm not sure anyone for whom circles still work fine is going to be tweeting about it publicly. I've seen a bunch of circle tweets from people showing off that it works fine.

@a_l_e_x Well, some are posting about it publicly, but yes, as I said twice, this method is flawed for a few reasons, including that one. If you would like to suggest a better way, I am keen to hear it!

@a_l_e_x Given that @KnowNothing specified that being able to post to circles constitutes proof (and is in a better position than I am to verify directly), I think that the extension does move the needle.

@edef can you clarify exactly how you made the Circles post? When I said being able to post new ones constituted proof, I wasn't considering that people might be using hacks/workarounds to try to prove it.

@KnowNothing I tweeted using the built-in UI, but some other people I asked don't seem to have that anymore.

@KnowNothing I'm not sure how we should account for the workaround: in practice, it seems to allow people full functionality, and the Twitter service doesn't seem to have removed any functionality at all. Paired with replies to old circle tweets still working even for the unlucky— without any workarounds—it seems hard to claim that the functionality is actually removed.

I think a hard NO might be pushing it, but I'm not sold on "it's gone", given that everyone who wants to can still use it.

@edef I view any workarounds as irrelevant. In my view, the primary question of the market was whether Elon/Twitter would decide to reverse the decision by market close, with the secondary question being the extent to which they successfully executed their original plan.

The answer to the primary question is clearly No. The answer to the secondary question seems to be that for a small percentage of people (only a couple that I know of), the rollout was not completed at close, meaning the answer isn't 100% YES, but way closer to that than NO. All that's left is the determination of how small that percentage is.

@edef There are many things that can be done through Chrome extensions or by other means that are not (and have never been) features intended by Twitter for public use.

Twitter/X announced that it would deprecate Circles. This market asked whether it would follow through with its plan in the given timeframe. It has done so, with no sign of hesitance.

It would be ridiculous to give any consideration at all to the workaround. It is clever of you to try to bundle it with the fact that it is still possible to reply to old Circle tweets, but I believe the latter has already been deemed irrelevant, no?

@a_l_e_x It does feel like the goalposts have moved somewhat; given that others traded along in response to the replies aspect, it seems less than obvious that these were perceived to be the intended resolution criteria.

@edef i don't think it's fair to say i moved the goalposts with replies. i was pretty consistent in saying that only making new posts would count, and replies to old posts wouldn't count.

@edef I do not presume to know the reasoning behind anyone else's trades, and I would be deeply concerned if the resolution of any market were influenced by the probability at close, unless of course it is mentioned in the resolution criteria. The implications of allowing trades to override facts in the resolution would be serious.

I haven't tried this myself, but I've talked to a few more people, and it looks like there's an additional way that still works, using https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/old-twitter-layout-2023/jgejdcdoeeabklepnkdbglgccjpdgpmf

The tweet box on the home timeline provides access to full Circle functionality. I haven't found anyone for whom this doesn't work.

@edef

WITH FIVE MINUTES LEFT

😂😂😂

Yeah it's still a bit iffy, at minimum. within usual jank bounds

UPDATE: It looks like the people who said they were still able to make news posts to their Circles are now no longer able to. If nobody can provide evidence to the contrary, then this will Resolve as YES.

I will give everyone an hour or so to prove they (or any other user) can make new posts (replies to old posts don't count) to their Circle. The easiest way to do this would be to add me to their Circle and then make a new post I can see.

This market will resolve somewhere between 0-100% depending on the quantity/quality of evidence. 100% if none.

@KnowNothing I've added you to my circle just now. Here's a brand new, top-level circle tweet: https://twitter.com/edefic/status/1719567495617544637

I can confirm to everyone that Circles is not disabled for @edef. I can confirm the same for one other person.

This market will NOT resolve at 100% YES, and I will give people time to provide more evidence.